The way Riffe sees it, the franchise-setting streak can be credited, at least in part, to his
black hat.

“Now, I make sure I always wear it,” he said.

Success, it seems, breeds superstition.

And, with the Jackets gunning for nine consecutive wins tonight in their matchup against the
Buffalo Sabres, superstition is running rampant among the faithful.

Bryan Moore, a Columbus native who lives in southern California, typically wears a certain
Jackets T-shirt while streaming the games on the Internet.

On Jan. 17, the night Columbus played Washington, Moore discovered his lucky shirt in the
laundry — and was compelled to devise a Plan B: He asked his wife to put on the Jackets shirt he
had recently bought for her online.

Four victories later, Lisa Moore will be sporting the shirt — still unwashed — for a fifth game
while watching long-distance tonight.

“The streak has nothing to do with (forward Nathan) Horton or (goalie Sergei) Bobrovsky,” Mr.
Moore joked. “Everything is about this shirt.”

Jackets fans seem to come by such behavior honestly: More than a few hockey players, after all,
are known for their own “rituals.”

Some are so superstitious that — well, they don’t go there.

“Superstitions? I have some,” said Blue Jackets center Artem Anisimov. “Not from this streak — I
just have some. But I’m not going to tell you about them, because that’s part of it.”

Superstitions tend to be used as coping mechanisms for uncertainty, giving people a sense of
control over something they can’t control, said Kentaro Fujita, an associate professor of
psychology at Ohio State University.

“It makes people feel better,” Fujita said.

What apparently makes Michelle Harklau feel better of late is avoiding the “s” word: She won’t
say
streak.

“I’m afraid, if I say it, it’s all going to come crashing down,” said Harklau, a 42-year-old
season-ticket holder from Grandview Heights. “I don’t even like going to the arena thinking we’re
going to win.”

Even though he lives in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, Mitch Cameron thinks he
has been doing his part to help his favorite hockey team win — and he arrived late to work one day
because of it.

His 12-year-old son had made him a rubber-band bracelet in Jackets colors right before the
streak started.

On Thursday, he left home without it.

“I had to turn around on my way to work,” Cameron said by email. “There was no way I was going
to be the one who caused the first loss.”

Bryan Riffe had a similar experience on Tuesday night, when, while driving to Nationwide Arena
for the game against the Los Angeles Kings, he realized he had forgotten his black hat.